I once saw a person from the distance walking in a crazy way and it bothered me. “Why can't he walk like a mensch??!!!” I would have said: "You look like a Meshugener". But I knew better. Maybe this person just had a painful operation and he's nebach struggling!
When people don't have any depth and try to understand each other, it can lead to the worst: אַ כְׂ זָ רִ יוּת cruelty! Like Eisav who only sees the "red stuff" but he doesn't even know what he's eating! My Uncle R' Manis Mandel Zatzal would always defend students who didn't listen.
He insisted that they should have their ears checked, since they may have a physical problem. But foolish parents and teachers don't think; they just get agitated and scream: "Can't you hear me!" Husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, and especially different sects and Shitos; there are tons of misunderstandings, and as a result, Sin’as Chinam is rampant!
During the death marches that the Nazis, Y'mach Sh'mam, imposed upon us at the end of the war, they yelled: “Why aren't you walking straight?!” To a person whom they were starving to death and was skin and bones, they yell at? And if you got out of line, they became furious and felt justified in killing and torturing such a person!
This is what we can all look like, Rachmana Litzlan, if we don't work on our Middos to understand people and to be Dan L'kaf Zechus. There is no doubt, that the treatment that the Germans gave us was a punishment for our own unthinking behavior that we had towards each other!
When we see a Yid who isn't quite on our level, we should be motivated to go all-out to understand him, when we see the tail end of narrow mindedness, i.e., a cruel Nazi, Rachmana Litzlan!
